Electric dipole moment

The electric dipole moment is a measure of the separation of positive and negative electrical charges within a system, that is, a measure of the system's overall polarity. The SI unit for electric dipole moment is the coulomb-meter (C⋅m). The debye (D) is another unit of measurement used in atomic physics and chemistry. Theoretically, an electric dipole is defined by the first-order term of the multipole expansion; it consists of two equal and opposite charges that are infinitesimally close together, although real dipoles have separated charge. Often in physics the dimensions of a massive object can be ignored and can be treated as a pointlike object, i.e. a point particle. Point particles with electric charge are referred to as point charges. Two point charges, one with charge +q and the other one with charge −q separated by a distance d, constitute an electric dipole (a simple case of an electric multipole). For this case, the electric dipole moment has a magnitude and is directed from the negative charge to the positive one. Some authors may split d in half and use s = d/2 since this quantity is the distance between either charge and the center of the dipole, leading to a factor of two in the definition. A stronger mathematical definition is to use vector algebra, since a quantity with magnitude and direction, like the dipole moment of two point charges, can be expressed in vector form where d is the displacement vector pointing from the negative charge to the positive charge. The electric dipole moment vector p also points from the negative charge to the positive charge. With this definition the dipole direction tends to align itself with an external electric field (and note that the electric flux lines produced by the charges of the dipole itself, which point from positive charge to negative charge then tend to oppose the flux lines of the external field). Note that this sign convention is used in physics, while the opposite sign convention for the dipole, from the positive charge to the negative charge, is used in chemistry.